A legacy of pain for Camp Lejeune water contamination victims

Saturday

Mar 25, 2017 at 10:00 AMMar 26, 2017 at 8:08 AM

Veterans, families have lingering questions about contamination even as VA starts disability compensation

JACKSONVILLE -- When Wayne Rummings left Buffalo, N.Y., in 1983 to enlist in the U.S. Navy, he could not have known he would find himself in the middle of one of the largest cases of water contamination in the nation's history.

Camp Lejeune's 34 years of water contamination ended in 1987, while Rummings was still serving as a medic at the sprawling Onslow County base. He did not feel the effects for years until, in 2010, he thought he had kidney stones. His doctor suspected something else was amiss when Rummings wasn't crying from pain and ordered a CT scan.

Seven years later, Rummings is recovering from a bout with kidney cancer -- one of the hallmark diseases of Camp Lejeune water poisoning. Recounting the ordeal recently, Rummings sat at his dining room table, a compression sleeve on his right arm in an effort to numb the painful throbbing a nervous system condition shoots through his fingertips.

"I think about cancer when I wake up, I think about cancer when I go to bed because I know what cancer does," Rummings said. His wife, Johana Rummings, helps him cope with the anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress that came along with the diagnosis.

At the other end of the table sat Joe Walker, Johana's brother who stuck around Jacksonville after leaving the Corps in 1974. Walker made a living bouncing people from local nightclubs and nabbing shoplifters, but was forced to stop when he was told multiple sclerosis -- not vertigo -- had been causing his bouts of dizziness.

Now, a year later, the self-described tough guy can't stand without the aid of his ever-present cane. X-rays show lesions spiking across his head.

"My brain," Walker said, "hurts so bad."

Both Walker and Rummings believe their ailments can be traced to their service on Lejeune, the site of water contamination between 1953 and 1987. This month, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) began accepting disability claims for veterans exposed to chemicals in Lejeune's water.

Walker and thousands of others must be able to prove their illnesses were caused by the benzene, trichloroethylene and vinyl chloride in Lejeune's well water. Many of them are eligible for free VA medical care, but not the disability compensation.

The $2.2 billion compensation program approved in the final months of the Obama Administration was hailed as a victory for Marines poisoned on Camp Lejeune, but many veterans and advocates say the Marines continue to shirk responsibility for poisoning as many as 1 million people, according to past estimates by health officials.

“The United States Marine Corps and the Department of the Navy have not been held accountable,” said retired Marine Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger, who heads The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten, which advocates for those affected by the contamination.

The program

The VA estimates it will spend $379.8 million on disability compensation during the first year of the program, which is similar to one granting compensation to Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Lejeune's case is different, though, in that it is the first time veterans are eligible for disability compensation for injuries not sustained in combat.

“We have a responsibility to take care of those who have served our nation and have been exposed to harm as a result of that service,” outgoing VA Sec. Rob McDonald said after the ruling was released.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., both fought to get the “presumptive status” because many of Lejeune veterans' claims were being denied.

“I’m disappointed at how long it took,” Burr said. “I think it is safe to say that the VA has known what scientific data has shown for a while.”

Any Lejeune veteran with one of the eight conditions won’t have to provide documentation proving it was caused by tainted water. Active-duty, Reserve and National Guard members who served at Camp Lejeune for at least 30 days between Aug. 1, 1953, and Dec. 31, 1987, are eligible.

While health officials have estimated as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to the water, the ruling only applies to veterans -- not men, women or children who lived or worked on Lejeune but were not enlisted.

'Two-thirds of our family'

Joe Walker's holidays begin at the Coastal Carolina State Veterans Cemetery in Jacksonville.

"Before I do Christmas, before I do Thanksgiving, I go to the VA cemetery to visit my family," he said. "That comes first. Then I can do the people who are alive and well."

When Walker visited the graveyard on a recent chilly day, his daughter, Jan Trim, helped him out of her car. Walker made a stuttering beeline for a clump of three headstones and two conspicuously green spaces.

Joe Walker picked these plots in 1999 after Ted Walker Jr., the oldest sibling, died on his way back from an exploratory surgery. Brain cancer killed Robert Walker, the third-oldest sibling, in February 2010.

Robert Walker told his family he was going to die Feb. 21, but he took his last breath on Feb. 12.

"He just got the numbers flipped," said Joe Walker, the second-oldest sibling.

Next to Robert is the vacant plot where Johana and Wayne Rummings will be buried. Beneath them is Ted Walker Sr. and Mary Walker's headstone. Ted Sr. died first, suffering from ALS. Mary went five years later after she had congestive heart failure.

A lone penny rests on each grave marker, indicating another brother had recently visited.

There are no markers for the two miscarriages Mary Walker suffered while the family was living at Camp Lejeune between 1964 and 1967.

"It it's affected this family, how many other families have they killed off?" Joe Walker said, later adding, "It really happens to real people."

Joe Walker's spot is to the left of his parents', jutting out from the square made by the rest of the stones. Now that he's received what Wayne Rummings refers to as a death certificate, Walker is working with Trim, his daughter, to plan his own funeral.

Walker jokes about having a cover charge and an open bar at the ceremony. He also knows exactly how he wants to be positioned in the grave -- a result of his father's head tipping slightly to the right when he was buried.

"I told them to tilt my head a little bit in the casket," Walker said, "so when he looks over, he'll see the one who aggravated him the most."

Two Walker brothers and Johana Rummings, their sister, never lived at Camp Lejeune and did not serve there. And even though the diseases that have killed members of his family one by one aren't among the presumptive illnesses, Joe Walker is convinced the water is to blame.

"We got a double dose of it. I was a kid (on Camp Lejeune), then I was a man. I was poisoned twice," he said. "So were my brothers."

“We understand that some of our Marine Corps family members have experienced adverse health conditions they believe are related to past Camp Lejeune drinking water,” Kulczewski said. “Our heart goes out to those who are suffering no matter what the cause.”

Ensminger called the Corps' statement “dismissive and offensive” to veterans and their family members exposed to the highly contaminated water while at Camp Lejeune.

“The leadership of the United States Marine Corps that carried these lies forward up to this very day are just as culpable as the people who were responsible for hiding this contamination,” Ensminger said.

Janey Ensminger died of childhood leukemia when she was 9. Now, a pastel picture of her hangs on the wall of the cluttered Elizabethtown study where her father works in her memory.

A 2014 study found that drinking water aboard Camp Lejeune was contaminated with chemicals from a dry-cleaning facility and a leaking fuel depot from 1953 until 1985. For years, the Marines argued federal environmental regulations for cancer-causing chemicals were not finalized until after the contaminated wells were discovered.

“Drinking water regulations for the chemicals found at Camp Lejeune were put into place in the late 1980's and early 1990's, years after the impacted-wells were shut down in late 1984 and 1985," Kulczewski said.

But the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery issued "The Manual of Naval Preventive Medicine” in 1963, including drinking water regulations.

"The water supply should be obtained from the most desirable sources which is feasible, and effort should be made to prevent or control pollution of the source," it reads.

Then in 1974, Base Order 5100.13B stipulated that organic solvents -- like the ones found on Camp Lejuene -- were hazardous in drinking water. Camp Lejeune was not the only base with problems. Contamination was found in drinking water wells in Warminster Naval Air Warfare Center and Willow Grove Naval Air Station, both just north of Philadelphia, in 1979. Unlike on Camp Lejeune, the wells were identified and closed.

Documents released in 2012 showed the Marines knew some water wells on Camp Lejeune were contaminated as early as October 1980. The U.S. Army Environmental Hygiene Agency lab located in Ft. McPherson, Ga., tested the base’s water.

The lab’s first report contained a hand-written note indicating contamination. Between October 1980 and December 1981, the Army laboratory reported back several times urging the Navy to test the water.

Camp Lejeune acknowledged the contamination in late 1984 and early 1985. Robert Alexander, the base environmental engineer, told The Globe, the base newspaper, that “people had not been directly exposed to the pollutants.”

Four years later, Col. Thomas Dalzell, Camp Lejeune’s Assistant Chief of Staff/Facilities, was asked if people on the base prior to 1983 should be concerned for their health.

“At that time, we were not aware of any these compounds that might have been in the groundwater and we have no information that anyone’s health was in any danger at that time,” he told The Globe.

Ensminger said the Corps’ actions in the early 1980s don’t reflect the official narrative. He wants Marine leadership to meet with veterans and their families exposed to contaminated water.

“To date no former base official or Marine officer in charge of the drinking water supply during the contamination period has been reprimanded or held accountable by current leadership," Ensminger said. "The Marine Corps should stop behaving like a defendant. It is time for the uniformed leaders of our Corps to begin living up to our motto, ‘Semper Fidelis (Always Faithful).’ ”

Kulczewski did not answer follow up questions regarding inconsistencies in the Corps' statements about the contamination.

Investigations by the Corps, EPA and the General Accountability Office cleared Camp Lejeune of any wrongdoing. But during 2007's 'Poisoned Patriots' hearing before a U.S. House subcommittee on Capitol Hill, EPA Special Agent Tyler Amon recommended obstruction of justice charges be brought against civilian Navy employees after they seemed “coached and were not forthcoming with details.”

The Department of Justice did not press charges.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said for decades the Marines have taken the position that they are not responsible.

“Through our actions, we’ve forced the government to acknowledge the contamination,” said North Carolina's senior senator. “Have we solved the problem? No. Just like it’s taken five decades to get to this point, we’re not going to resolve every issue overnight, but I think we have built the database we need, through science, for people to make decisions in the future to further extend the resolution.”

Last Christmas, Walker bought his 1-year-old granddaughter a red-and-white dress.

"By the time she's old enough to remember who I am or who I would have been, I'm gonna be gone," he said. "She isn't going to remember that her grandfather bought her a little Christmas dress."

Rummings has already seen two brother-in-laws and his own brother die from various cancers and now he's watching Walker suffer through MS, all while coping with his own illnesses.

"The more I read about (the water contamination), the more terrified I am because it's going to come back and haunt me," Rummings said. "It's doing it in every way. It's basically attacking my systems now, I think."

If the VA wants to help the veterans who served at Lejeune, he suggested, they can put someone at each clinic who is only there to aid water contamination victims -- an effort he believes could help with continuity of care and improve treatment.

Rummings plans on filing an additional claim to receive the disability payment, while Walker is waiting until MS is included on the list of presumptive conditions -- a change he hopes could come as soon as next year.

As she helps her father plan his funeral, Trim's mind often wanders to her own children. She is concerned the water contamination she and her father are convinced has haunted their family could transfer from generation to generation.

"I've lost two grandparents, two uncles, I'm losing my father. I don't know what this stuff has done to them," Trim said. "I don't know what it might do to me and my cousins or my kids. Because you can't tell us it doesn't go down the stream."